Having fun with Acura/Carmax and UPS!

[Chris Luva Luva]

Good news: I didnt lose my job.

Bad news: Dont purchase a car from carmax or at least not the one in White Marsh MD.

Feb 23rd: I drop my car off to get the blinkers fixed along with a sunroof rattle and a broken 6 disc cd changer.

1 week later: Carmax can't fix the blinkers and sends the car out to acura. Im not told that they couldn't/wouldn't fix the rattle.

End of 2nd week: Carmax calls me and says that my car is ready BUT I cant have it. Payment by their corporate office cannot be authorized and Ill have to wait till the next business day.

Monday of 3rd week: Car isnt available.

Tuesday of 3rd week: Car is not available. I called the service manager of carmax and tell him what Ive been told. He's telling me that the warranty company (purchased through carmax) is the hold up and that I should call them since they seem to move faster if a customer calls. I call them and within five minutes solve the problem. Botch carmax and Acura are claiming to have fixed one thing and the warranty company isn't going to cut them both a check. It took me 5 minutes to do what they couldn't do it 3 days. I made a trip to carmax that same day to talk to the manager of the building. He apologizes and crap and brings out the service manager who seemed nonchalant about the whole ordeal. So he promises to have my car by the end of the week (its wed.) and they'll come out of pocket if need be. He gives me a loaner Ford Escape.

Thursday of 3rd week: Still haven't gotten car

Friday of 3rd week: Service manager reminds me that he's going to come out of pocket to get my car from Acura if need be, again no car.
Friday night of 3rd week: Almost ran into someone in Bestbuy parking lot.

Saturday fo 3rd week: Returned Ford Escape with bad brakes, the rotor/s was grinding metal on metal. The service manager didn't even take my word for it and made me get in the car with him to see for himself. It took him about 4-5 minutes to hear the noise as it got progressively louder. I guess he felt he was doing me a favor.

Tuesday of week four: My car was retrieved from Acura but shipped to a transmission shop without my consent/asking.

Tuesday of week five: I get my car back. It seems Acura did a lot of recall work on my car that I didn't know about. I returned the loaner car and grab the keys to my car and go out to start it and this is when more trouble starts.

1. Batt. is dead.
2. I haven't been given the radio code to activate the head unit.
3. Sunroof is still rattling.
4. My car is covered in filth, waterspots and bird poop.

So now Carmax wants me to bring my car back to them since they never bothered to fix my sunroof. I want to know why they didn't have Acura fix it since they sent it there to have the blinkers fixed.

I implore you, please dont purchase a car from carmax. Ive had a long history of poor customer service and horribly skilled mechanics. They dont care about you as a customer and just try to brush you to the side.

So now my car is all of a sudden not starting up strongly and I dont know what this could be stemming from. Is it just the battery? Could there be a short in that electical work they did? Im afraid to take it back to carmax.

[NC43Hog]

Why did you take it to Carmax in the first place? One thing in this world that is worth it's weight in gold is a good mechanic. If you had things covered under warranty, then go directly to the Acura shop, if not then ask around til you find a good import repair shop.

You are definitely nicer than I would have been, after a call from my attorney, they would have reacted a bit different I wager.

Best of luck CLL.

[NikiH]

Ok, unforunately I've had dealings with these type of people more then once, not at Carmax but at various other retailers. Stop calling the local Car Max. It's getting you no where, obviously. It's time to take this to a higher authority. You have a few choices here. First of all, in VA at least, legally they CANNOT hold your car regardless of payment for services. They can sue you if they'd like but that car is your property and as such they have absolutely no right to hold it. So that is mistake number one, assuming the law carries over to MD. So with violation of a law I think it's time to get the BBB involved. If you search their site you will find local offices and a toll free number to call if you'd rather handle things over the phone. Your other option is corporate headquarters. I've called a few in my time. I'm not a complainer mind you, Scott and I have just had our fair share of lemons and with all of the moving (military) we've done, we have had to deal with more then the average share of companies trying to screw us over. I hope this helps Chris. Later if you haven't read this I will post some helpful links, when I have time.

[patjam77]

dude... i feel your pain... that whole story just makes me cringe.

[Skinsfan55]

At first I had this seriously stupid thought:

"Well no wonder they couldn't do anything, why did you send your car to a lip balm manufacturer?"

Heh...heh...

Anyway, my girlfriend (and future wife) has mechanics on both sides of the family... So hopefully I'll be all set .

Also, I've been learning to do small jobs myself (changing oil, changing bulbs, changing brake fluid) to save money... maybe they can teach me some more advanced stuff...

This is off topic I guess, but I really enjoyed changing my car's oil... even something that simple gives you like this weird strengthened bond to your car... instead of just being a bucket of bolts and metal, it's like a treasured piece of equiptment...

Try it out, it saves you a lot of money in the long run and it's super easy.

[Punu]

man I bought my acura from carmax... but i'm not tak'n it back there for any type of repair.